Doubt and Uncertainty

I was going to make this a “quote of the day” post, but then found that more than one blogger had tackled this subject.

Scot McKnight offers a response to a letter about doubt. He has many wise things to say, such as the following:

you will never go back to where you were and you will never be the same again and you will never get back to where things were. Instead, this season of doubt, which for some lasts months and for others years and even in some ways lingers for a lifetime, is with you and it changes you and your faith. There is a temptation to seek to go back and find your first feelings or your former way of doing things. That approach to encountering doubt teaches most us one one thing: that’s not the approach that “works.”

He also emphasizes that it helps us continue to learn and grow if we avoid the temptation to surround ourselves with people who already think like us.

Undeception addresses the common question “If we conclude that the Bible is not 100% true, then how do we know which bits are true?” In the process he talks about my book The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith which emphasizes that historical study is really the only way we can figure out what is likely or unlikely to be historical.
Mark Vernon’s piece in the Guardian (HT Bible and Interpretation) also is relevant to this theme.